Wagner students earn high marks at Eastern Colleges Science Conference

Wagner students earn high marks at Eastern Colleges Science Conference

Meghan Marie Morrissey, James Ducey, Michael Cataldo

Wagner College science students earned high marks and gained valuable professional experience at the 2015 Eastern Colleges Science Conference, held at Niagara University in Niagara Falls, N.Y. They were among the approximately 220 participants from 16 institutions of higher education — mostly undergraduates in the physical, chemical, biological and social sciences — who attended the 69th annual conference on Saturday, April 18.

Sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs, Wagner College undergraduates gave five platform presentations and 14 poster presentations of their empirical research.

Three Wagner students won excellence awards for their presentations:

Microbiology major Meghan Marie Morrissey, whose research mentor was Professor Kathleen Bobbitt, won an excellence award for her manuscript, “The Effect of Five Plant Extracts on Serratia marcescens for Medicinal Significance.”

Biology majors Michael Cataldo and James Ducey, whose research mentor was Professor Jonathan Blaize, won a best presentation award for their poster presentation, “Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Planarian Micrographs in Search of Human Proto-Oncogene Orthologs.”

“The general consensus was that presenting one’s own research in a scientific meeting was a great experience that could not be duplicated in a classroom setting,” said Donald Stearns, the Martha Megerle Professor of Biology and ECSC coordinator at Wagner College. “Our students did an outstanding job of explaining their research findings to their peers as well as faculty. For many, it was the first time they had presented their research in this context.”

Next year’s Eastern Colleges Science Conference will be hosted by Western New England University in Springfield, Mass. Wagner students beginning empirical research now are encouraged to present their findings at next year’s ECSC. For more information about the conference, visit its website.